Usually there’s nothing remarkable about a celebrity putting their name on a new product. Whether it’s clothing fragrance or questionable diet products, famous people endorse things all the time.
But Lily Allen has managed to make brand partnerships feel new again by teaming up with adult brand Womanizer to create her very own vibrator, the Liberty.
The announcement made quite a splash last week, with fans praising Allen’s open attitude to discussing masturbation and her commitment to removing the stigma attached to women taking control of their own pleasure.
There’s no question that the timing is good. This year, thanks to lockdown, sales of sex toys have soared. And for some women who are still nervous about investing in a vibrator, seeing a friendly celebrity face might well strip away any residual embarrassment. But how does the actual product measure up? We put it to the test.
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Womanizer Liberty by Lily Allen rechargeable clitoral stimulator: £89.99, Lovehoney – buy now
The packaging is pretty, pink and orange, and has a picture of Lily Allen’s face on it, which is sort of incongruous, but then if you’ve done a brand partnership with a celebrity you might as well get your money’s worth. It’s also got her signature on it, which is something we haven’t seen since our SClub 7 Easter egg in 1999.
The toy itself is also pink and orange, and comes with a pink plastic case. It feels very much like it could either be a sex toy, or something involved in skincare. It’s fundamentally unthreatening and not at all phallic. It comes with a storage bag (pretty standard for a sex toy) a charger, which is useful because it precludes having to nick the batteries from the TV remote, and two spare heads.
The heads come in a variety of different sizes – something which is extremely unusual with sex toys. They enable you to fit the toy to your body, something which arguably should come a standard given that people’s clitorises tend to vary in size. It’s a small, but extremely inclusive step which would make the toy much more enjoyable to a far wider variety of people.
In terms of function, the Liberty is a continuation of Womanizer’s extremely popular (and very enjoyable) “pleasure air” technology. The brand says this works to “stimulate your clitoris without even touching it. Gentle sucking and soft vibrations lead you to a new kind of orgasm you have never experienced before.”
It’s a form of stimulation that various different brands now use (Lelo calls it a “sonic massager”) where the toy uses a combination of air, pulsation and vibration in order to achieve a clitoral stimulation which is much more fulsome than your bog standard bullet. It’s similar to the sensation of oral sex, which is possibly why it’s so popular.
The toy itself works well. Really, really well actually. It’s very intense, but it’s quiet enough that you could use it comfortably if you don’t have total privacy in your home. The settings are incredibly simple to use, with a plus button to increase intensity and a minus to lessen it (though it’s a bit confusing that you hold down the plus button in order to turn it off.)
Womanizer hasn’t wasted time on lots of complicated vibration patterns, which never seem very popular with users, instead providing six different levels of intensity, the top end of which is incredibly powerful.
If you’ve always wanted to achieve multiple orgasms, but haven’t ever been able to, a toy such as the Liberty would probably be the best thing to try. It might also be worth a go if you struggle to orgasm and haven’t had a great experience with other more traditional vibrators.
It seems to elicit a much deeper type of stimulation. It would also be a great next purchase if you’re someone who has an old faithful bullet or rabbit, and you’re ready to move on to something newer and a little more intense.
The only real complaint to level at Lily Allen’s version of the Liberty toy is that it’s basically the exact same as some of Womanizer’s previous offerings. While the original Liberty (£89) is the same price as the Lily Allen version, the Starlet 2, a very similar toy to the newest launch, costs just £69.
It’s fair to say that there’s no clear explanation for the £20 price difference, other than the fact that it has Allen’s face on the box, and comes in a slightly more exciting colour scheme.
